Blackjewel still hasn’t paid many of its coalminers three years on

Blackjewel sold the Eagle Butte mine just north of Gillette, Wyoming to a subsidiary of Alabama-based FM Coal in October 2019. Photograph: Mead Gruver/AP

In July 2019, about 1,700 coalminers working for an affiliate of one of the largest coalmine operators in the US, Blackjewel, found their paychecks had bounced. Many were left with bank accounts in the negative while bills and late fees piled up.

Blackjewel then filed for bankruptcy and abruptly shut down its mines in Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming, laying off miners without notice and leaving them without pay for the work they had completed the past two weeks.